¨Is your seatbelt on?¨, my dad said, with excitement waiting impatiently to be expelled from his vocal chords. ¨Um… yeah? Why¨, I said, extremely confused. Why would he be asking me that right now? We are on a never ending highway in the Arizona desert. Suddenly, without warning, he swerved off of the highway onto a dirt road ¨Mile Marker 74, remember that kiddo.¨he let out a chuckle and kept driving on the sandstone colored road. I was wondering what the heck was going on until we pulled into this extremely secluded camping sight in the middle of nowhere. Thats where he parked the car. He asked me if I was ready, and I sat there and wondered for what? That´s where the adventure began.

We exited the car with nothing but the clothes on our backs.   ¨We will take this trail up to the top of the mountain, I want to show you something.¨ I just decided to go along with it and stop asking questions. We hiked for what felt like hours, and in the process got to see a herd of javelinas. There was a newborn javelina straggling behind like a lost duckling. As they passed, the stench of wild animal filled the air, but it was fleeting. We made it to our destination, which was the top of the mountain. And then I heard it. The most ear piercing, deafening sound. True silence. It was different than silence in a room or building, it was raw. Everything was so still and peaceful that I thought I was looking out onto a giant postcard. It was truly a moment that I will remember for my whole life.

As the sun made it's decent, the creatures of the desert began to wake up, the silence was broken. The temperature also dropped drastically, so we thought it was best to start heading back to the car. We eventually got back, bodies shaking from the cold and eyelids that felt like there were weights attached to them. But we didn't care. We just had the adventure of a lifetime off of mile marker 74.